DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental — Members of the tri-media in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental will celebrate World Press Freedom Day on Thursday with a prayer rally seeking justice for a slain colleague and for a stronger and united stand to defend freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
Juancho Gallarde, president of the Dumaguete Press Club, disclosed that the prayer rally will be held at the Quezon Park here Thursday evening solely for media practitioners, priests and pastors in honor of Edmund Sestoso, a radio anchor/commentator, who was shot Monday and died Tuesday here.
“Gihimo nato ni aron ipakita nga naghiusa ta aron pagpangayo ug hustisya kang Edmund (We are doing this to seek justice for Edmund),” said Gallarde.
He went on to say that it is a sad day for the Dumaguete media to commemorate World Press Freedom Day in mourning for a colleague having been shot in broad daylight by perpetrators in what many media practitioners believe was work-related.
The prayer rally will also serve as a platform for media colleagues to air their sentiments and reiterate their condemnation of Sestoso’s murder, which Governor Roel Degamo, Dumaguete Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo, the Diocese of Dumaguete, and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, have also strongly denounced in separate statements.
“If we are to keep silent, who will speak for us? Who will take up the cudgels and defend press freedom?” Gallarde asked.
Sestoso, 50, married, of Dumaguete City, succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds a day after two unidentified men riding-in-tandem on a motorcycle fired at him as he disembarked from a tricycle Monday morning at his boarding house in Barangay Daro, this city.
He had just returned from his regular morning program, “Tug-anan sa Power 91” on DYGB-FM.
Another prayer rally is scheduled Friday evening at the Ninoy Aquino Freedom Park, this time, with politicians and the general public being invited to speak or to be present to show support in seeking justice for Sestoso’s death.
Meanwhile, Secretary Martin Andanar of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, Special Assistant to the President Christopher Go, and other Palace officials are scheduled to visit Sestoso’s wake at a funeral parlor in Dumaguete City Thursday afternoon.
The Palace officials will meet afterwards with the Dumaguete media. (Mary Judaline Partlow/PNA)
